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The Museum’s Collections document the fate of Holocaust victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others through artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories, and more. Search below to view digital records and find material that you can access at our library and at the Shapell Center.

Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre conducted the interview on November17, 1996, in Melbourne, Australia. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the interview as an accretion to its July 1996 collection purchase.

Benjamin Lewin, born in 1926 in Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary), Czech Republic, describes his father, who was a traveling salesman for a shoe manufacturer; his mother, who ran a kosher "Pensionat" (i.e. a small hotel), accommodating 50 guests; the increase in Nazism in 1936; his family moving to Aussig (Ústí nad Labem), Czech Republic; the German takeover of the Sudeten in 1938; his family moving to Prague, Czech Republic; the living conditions in Prague after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 and being fraught with fear; his family manufacturing of electric kettles for export to Germany in conjunction with a workshop, which was formerly owned by his uncle and transferred to non-Jewish management; the Jewish life in Prague and his bar mitzvah; their manufacturing job lasting until May 1941 when they ran out of production materials; being provided food by Czech farmers; how the Czech police hated the Germans and behaved "decently"; the deportation of Prague Jews to Theresienstadt beginning in May-June 1941; the lists of the Jewish population that were drawn up by the Jewish administration and how call-ups for "resettlement" took place in alphabetical order; his family being sent to Theresienstadt in September 1941; working as an electrician in the camp; his mother being assigned to the kitchen, which helped him get extra rations; the poor conditions in the camp; he and his father being in a barracks with German Jews and his belief that they received preferential treatment; the well documented visit of the Swiss Red Cross officials and the sham perpetrated by the Germans; being taken with his father to Auschwitz during the summer of 1944; he and his father surviving the selection; being protected by a Kapo along with two other youths; being taken to Czechowice (Tschechowitz), where his father died; being marched to Obitz and then transported in open cattle cars to Buchenwald; how only 1,000 of the 7,000 people on the train survived; being liberated by the Russians; returning to Prague in August 1945; finding his mother and sister who were liberated in Theresienstadt; being called up for military service in the Czech Army; going to Belgium where he briefly attend school; his adjustment to life in Australia; and how he attributes his survival to youth.

Lea Heimler (née Rehberger), born March 3, 1927 in Gyor, Hungary, describes her father, who owned a pub and was killed in an accident in 1939; moving with her mother to the small town of Farád nearby and living near other family members; the local Jewish population consisting of only eight families and her mother running a small store; the Germans occupation of Hungary in March 1944 and the local Jews being forced into a small ghetto in Csorna; being moved several weeks later to a larger ghetto/camp in Sarvar; being transported with all the camp inmates, mostly women and children, to Auschwitz by cattle cars in June 1944; arriving in Auschwitz; being separated from her mother and never seeing her again; being held in barracks for about six weeks; being transported to Allendorf concentration camp in Frankenberg, Germany in August 1944; working in an underground munitions factory and the conditions there; being marched for approximately 60 kilometers to the vicinity of the town of Homberg (Kreis Kassel), Germany; the German guards disappearing and being liberated the next day by American troops; returning to Gyor in 1946; getting married in 1948; and leaving Hungary for Austria with her husband and daughter and immigrating the same year to Australia.

Veronika Varga (née Roth), born in 1921 in Hungary, near Kisvarda, speaks about her childhood, her father’s work as a bank manager and his sudden death in 1928; moving to a new house (Horthy 28 in Kisvarda); her extended family and schooling; having an ordinary life in the pre-war years and early 1940s; the Jewish community of Kisvarda; their disbelief of news or personal reports of antisemitic actions elsewhere; her marriage in April 1944 to a member of the Hungarian army, a “sad wedding” as carts bringing people from the country to the new ghetto passed by the window; gendarmes seizing her mother’s house, just inside the ghetto perimeter, the following day and moving more people into it; the brief, six-week-long existence of the Kisvarda ghetto and cruel treatment by the gendarmerie; deportation in June 1944 to Auschwitz, where her mother and grandmother perished; conditions in camp; being selected for a work detail; being taken to Birkenau; being disinfected with other women; traveling to Stutthof and their quarters there; living in a tent at Ollec; doing hard labor during a cold winter, digging ditches for cables, and her role as Blockälteste; the Germans fleeing in January 1945 and her escape with the woman who was Blockälteste for 50B; staying in various houses as they made their way out of Poland; walking and riding in wagons and Russian trucks; searching for her brother, Ivan, at a camp in Krakow; going to Red Cross in Kosice, Slovakia and learning her husband, Imre, had survived; returning to Hungary and reuniting with Imre at his house in Nyíregyháza; visiting Kisvarda only to see her father’s grave; the birth of their daughter, Zsofia, in 1946; losing everything again, this time to the Communists; changing their surname to Varga to obtain visas; and immigrating to Australia in 1958. (Near the end of the interview, she displays two documents, a permit to travel through Poland and a Red Cross paper from Czechoslovakia to facilitate travel.)

Floris Gryfenberg Kalman, born in Brussels, Belgium, describes her Polish parents who had immigrated in 1929; fleeing to France in May 1940; her father being inducted in the Polish Army in France; being sent back to Belgium with her mother and younger sister by the Germans in late 1940; living fairly normally until the summer of 1942 when the deportations started; her experiences as a hidden child, which she still feels the effects; her relationship with her parents deteriorating and feeling abandoned by them; her family surviving the war and immigrating to Australia in 1949; finishing high school and earning a university degree; returning to the Jewish religion through her children despite the protests of her parents who were of Bundist conviction; her involvement with her children and grandchildren; and how her newly found faith has made her a happier person.

Stephen Curtis (né Istvan Kertesz), born September 7, 1918 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in a middle class, non-religious family; being inducted into a work battalion of the Hungarian Army in 1942; how the conditions were not bad and there were several lengthy periods when he could return to Budapest; getting married in April 1944 and having to go back to the camp; working for the Wehrmacht in Poland digging ditches; how his wife and mother-in-law were sent to a camp in Burgenland (now Hungary) and survived; getting back to Burgenland toward the end of the war; his family returning to Budapest on April 18, 1945; immigrating to Israel (then part of Palestine) in 1946; spending time in the Hagana and in the War of Liberation (1948); participating in the battle to open up the road to Jerusalem; moving in 1955 to Australia because he got tired of serving every year in the reserves; and his advice to fellow Jews.

Frank Jenner (né Gazirovsky), born on January 2, 1920 in Düsseldorf, Germany, describes his youth in Düsseldorf and Wuppertal, Germany; not experiencing much antisemitism until well into the Nazi period; being counseled in 1938 to join a Jewish training farm for young people; his memories of Kristallnacht when he and other students over the age of 18 were arrested and taken to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany; conditions in the camp; being released in early 1939 when he received a visa to Australia, which was in need of agricultural workers; and arriving in Australia in the summer of 1939 and working for two years on farms.

Jakob Ginzberg, born in Lodz, Poland on March 10, 1920, describes being raised in a family of seven children; his father, who was a Gerrer Chasid and the owner of a small knitting factory; his father’s death when Jakob was 14 years old; his family escaping the ghetto with the help of a Volkdeutsch acquaintance; going to his mother’s hometown of Koinck (near Radom, Poland); being taken to Chelmno and Lublin, where he was forced to work on airplanes; being taken to Ukraine to do forced labor on roads and fortifications; having an accident and going to the hospital; being sent back to Koinck; winding up in the Radom ghetto, where he worked in a bicycle factory; learning the electrical welding trade, which later became the secret of his survival; working in a munitions factory in Skolna (ph) as a welder; being taken on a five-day march as the Russians approached; winding up in Auschwitz; continuing to Wehingen, Germany, where there was a French prisoner of war camp and eventually to Dachau; being taken to Seefeld and Garmisch Partenkirchen, where he was saved by a German woman; being liberated by the United States Army; and believing that he survived in order to share his story with future generations.

Magda Fried Curtis, born in Kismarok, Czechoslovakia in 1921, describes her father dying while she was an infant; her mother and two older brothers; moving with her mother to Budapest, Hungary in 1929, while her brothers stayed in Czechoslovakia; the anti-Jewish laws beginning in Hungary in 1939 and not being allowed to get a higher education; finding a job as a secretary in a non-Jewish cosmetics company, where she managed the business; meeting her husband Stephen (RG-50.407*0012) in 1938; the war beginning and her husband serving in the Hungarian military labor camps; getting married during the German occupation of Hungary; the severe conditions in Budapest when they were moved to “Jewish Houses”; how she and her mother were among 2,000, mostly Jewish women, who were taken to Deutschkreis in Burgeland in October 1944; being left behind with her mother and approximately 30 other women to clean up the camp, while most of the other prisoners were taken to Bergen-Belsen; managing to get back across the Hungarian border and being liberated by the Russian Army; her husband surviving; making their way back to Budapest where only her father-in-law had survived; immigrating with Stephen to Israel in 1948; immigrating to Australia in 1957; and ascribing her survival to luck and a positive mental attitude.

Anna Danko (née Gruenfeld), born June 29, 1924 in Verek Berchova (ph), Czechoslovakia near Munkacz (Mukacheve, Ukraine), describes her religious family; her brothers attending Yeshiva in Bratislava; how her hometown became part of Hungary during the war; the formation of the ghetto; being deported to Auschwitz; how she and her sister were able to help many fellow prisoners while in the camp; being sent to Ravensbrück and then Reichshof, traveling by foot and by cattle car; and being liberated by the Russian Army.

Bella Garfinchel Meylikh, born August 1925 in Benderi, Romania (Bender, Moldova), describes the population of 50,000-60,000 inhabitants, of which approximately half were Jewish; her parents, who were both medical doctors; her father’s death when she was five years old; growing up in a non-religious environment, but with a feeling of Jewish belonging; her family moving to Kishinev (Chisinau, Moldova) in 1930; Jabotinsky’s speech about the coming dangers for the Jewish people; the political upheavals in Romania when the Iron Guard came to power; how in 1940 Bessarabia was taken over by the Soviets; escaping into Russia with her mother in 1941; winding up in a small village in Kazakhstan, living under extremely primitive conditions; her mother continuing to practice medicine in Kazakhstan; entering the university in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1942; receiving permission in 1944 to return to Kishinev; finishing college and studying medicine in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg, Russia); the nightmarish antisemitism of Stalin’s final days; and receiving permission to leave the Soviet Union in 1970 and settling in Australia.

Miriam Unreich (née Blumenstock), born April 30, 1923 in Spicka Staravetz (ph), Czechoslovakia, describes her father’s store selling clothes and textiles and his involvement in the lumber business; the deportations beginning in March 1942; the Aryanization of the family business and the new proprietor giving them permission to stay; how only eight Jewish families remained in their town by the end of 1942; preparing to go into hiding in 1943 but being betrayed and handed over to the Germans at the Polish border; being kept in prison for a short time then sent to Plaszów concentration camp near Kraków, Poland; being separated from her mother; her mother hiding 500 dollars in Miriam’s clothes; receiving help from a German inmate, who got her extra food; being transferred after two months to Birkenau; meeting a friend who was a Blockälteste and protected her; being sent on death march to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany on January 18, 1944; going to Neustadt-Glewe; and being liberated on April 30, 1945 by the Russian Army.

Alex Heimler, born on May 16, 1924 in Vered, Hungary, describes his town as small with 30 or so Jewish families; his father’s wholesale grain business, grocery, and fuel depot; finishing high school, apprenticing as an automobile mechanic, and obtaining his certification in 1943; how after the Germans entered Hungary, he had to go to a labor camp and was put to work in a manganese mine; escaping from the camp after Hungary pulled out of the war on October 16, 1944; making his way to Budapest, Hungary and surviving the war under the protection of the Red Cross and the Swedish Legation; liberation and working for three months for the Russians, rounding up Nazi collaborators; returning to Vered in March 1945; and escaping in 1956 to Austria and immigrating to Australia the same year.

Serry Wolf-Gans, born in 1927 in Winterswijk, the Netherlands, describes her father, who had a wholesale knitwear business; her family being strictly observant; her family going into hiding in 1943 and being subsequently betrayed; escaping while her family was arrested; the deportation of her family; finding a new hiding place, where she stayed until two months before liberation; walking with a friend towards the liberators; meeting up with Scottish troops somewhere in Germany; getting married to a Holocaust survivor; immigrating first to New Zealand and then to Australia; and how her family is still strictly observant.

Sam Pick, born October 27, 1924 in Pabianice, Poland (near Lódz), describes his family’s Orthodox background and his father’s prosperous textile business; the persecution during the first years of the war; being sent to a labor camp in 1941 in Zbąszyń, Poland; arriving in the camp and working on German railroads under supervision of the Bahnpolizei (railway police); the conditions in the camp and having sufficient food to survive; being sent with his fellow inmates to Auschwitz in June 1943; being recruited after three weeks to work on the cleanup of the ruins of the former Warsaw ghetto; how is group of 80 prisons were the only polish speakers of the some 9,000 workers sent to Warsaw; conditions while working in Warsaw for a year; finding valuables in the rubble, which eventually helped him to survive; being sent to Dachau concentration camp in Germany, where he worked in underground hangars on German fighter-planes; winding up in the Tyrol, Austria, where he was supposed to work on the "Nazis redoubt” towards the end of the war; being liberated by the United States Army near the Starnberg Sea in Bavaria; being reluctant to tell his story until recently; how he believes his story is common and Elie Wiesel's and Primo Levi's wonderful retellings of their experiences; and attributing his survival to the grace of God and simple luck.

Zofia Hockin, born in Warsaw, Poland in 1947, describes her parents, Leon Nadel and Estella Lipshitz, who were both born Jewish but survived the Holocaust by passing as non-Jews; how after the war her parents continued to live in Poland under their assumed identities; how her father was a university professor and her mother worked in Polish radio; not knowing of her Jewish background as a child and discovering it as a teenager when a Jewish boyfriend pointed it out to her; her father being demoted in 1968 during the anti-Jewish campaign and choosing to stay in Poland; struggling with her identity; looking for spiritual meaning in her life; joining a group of second generation holocaust survivors; and being accompanied to the interview by her Aunt Maria Roba, who is Zofia’s only relative who left Poland before the war and never concealed her Jewish background.

Renia Rutman, born in Warsaw, Poland on May 15, 1921, describes being the youngest of six children (three girls and three boys); her father, who was a tailor and a manufacturer of men’s clothing; how one of her brothers had good connections with non-Jews and managed to find hiding places for his mother and three sisters; how a Polish girl fell in love with her brother and managed to save them; her brother getting married to this girl after the war; instances of betrayal and the family’s miraculous escapes; how during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, the family was arrested by the Germans, but not identified as Jews; being separated from their brother; going to Germany, where the four women managed to keep up the masquerade as Polish non-Jews; she and her sisters speaking Polish perfectly while their mother feigned deafness in order to hide her Jewish accent; and being liberated near Leipzig, Germany and returning to Warsaw, where they were reunited with their brother.

Jack Widawski, born on November 28, 1926 in Lodz, Poland, describes his parents, Victor and Esther Widasky; being raised in a traditional Jewish home; his family owning a jewelry shop; life in the Lodz ghetto, where he worked in a “engineering factory” on a milling machine; his father working at a food distribution center; the curfew in 1942 and the subsequent selections and deportations; the Judenrat members and his mixed feelings about the Jewish police; his mother dying in the ghetto in 1943; being deported to Auschwitz with his three sisters and father; staying with his father and surviving the selections together; volunteering with his father as tradesmen; being sent to Germany, where they worked in a car factory; the bombing of the factory and moving to another factory in Sigmar-Schoenau (located in Chemnitz, Germany); being put on a death march in April 1945; escaping with a friend and being liberated near the Czech border; finding his father again; his father getting married; the family immigrating to Australia in 1949; and his belief that it is important to “stick to Jewishness.”

Guta Goldstein (née Koppel), born in Lódz, Poland in 1930, describes how her father was a textile merchant and came from a large Orthodox family; being only ten years old when the Lódz ghetto was established; her escape from a “children’s camp” during one of the Aktions; the Judenrat chief, Chaim Rumkowski, urging parents to give up their small children; being deported with her mother to Auschwitz concentration camp in August of 1944; their arrival and her first impressions of the camp; still looking like a young child, but surviving several selections; being taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in November of 1944; being taken to Mehltheuer, a subcamp of Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany, where she worked as a chambermaid for German officers; being liberated on April 16, 1944 by the United States Army; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

Sam Dason, born in Pinczow, Poland on March 1, 1924, describes being put to work on roads shortly after the German invasion; the deportation of his family in 1942; being forced to work in a munitions factory in Czestochowa, Poland; being transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany in 1943 then Schlieben concentration camp, where he worked for six months repairing railroad tracks; working in the factories in Myslowice and Bamberg, Germany before being sent on foot march to Theresienstadt (Terezin, Czech Republic); escaping the march and being taken in by a Czech farmer who harbored him for six weeks, until liberation; going to Australia; and how he spent time in Geneva, Switzerland, where he married.

Vera Ray, born December 10, 1932 in Orlová, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) near Ostrava, discusses her parents Yelena and Heinrich Silbiner (later changed to Silvan); how her father’s real name not used for 53 years and is unknown; being raised in a middle class family; her father’s work as a watchmaker and mother’s work as a teacher of piano and languages; being an only child; the loss of her paternal grandmother and five of her father’s seven siblings in the Holocaust; her father’s efforts to smuggle Jews out of Ostrava circa 1938; how her family appears to be the only survivors from Ostrava; leaving Czechoslovakia in 1939 and going to Kraków, Poland, avoiding air raids along the way; moving to Korets', Ukraine and living there until 1941; moving to Ulyanov (Ul'ianovsk), Russia circa 1941 and later to Alma Ata, Kazakhstan; the end of the war and moving with her family to Bucharest, Romania and later to Prague, Czech Republic; her parents’ decision to become nondenominational so as to avoid antisemitism; her family’s immigration to Australia in 1948 via Egypt, where they spent several months in a tent camp before moving on to Australia; getting married circa 1952 to a Czech camp survivor and later divorcing him; her two children, who are not particularly interested in Judaism; and coming out as a lesbian.

Ida Hampel (née Scheuer), born in December 1914 in Tarnów, Poland, discusses her family, including her four sister and one brother; her father, who had a very large bed feather business; attending a Polish school and a business college; antisemitism in school; her father, who was religious and attended synagogue regularly; being Kosher at home; being aware of the anti-Jewish sentiments in Germany during the 1930s; working in an office; the beginning of the war; part of her family going eastward briefly to the part of Poland occupied by the Soviets before returning home; her first encounter with the occupying Germans; feeling scared constantly; receiving help from a friend in Switzerland, Carl Busch; the process of getting a visa to Australia, where her fiancé was living; traveling through Vienna, Austria to Switzerland; going by ship to Australia; arriving in Melbourne on May 10, 1940; getting married on May 25, 1940; her attempts to send parcels to her family members in Poland; the survival of her sister Branca; the deaths of her mother and sister Blanca in Auschwitz; the fates of other family members; her two daughters; her husband’s death in 1955; taking over her husband’s cake business; her thoughts on her life and Australia; and never telling her children about her experiences in the war. (The interviewee shares family pictures at the end of the interview.)

Kim Mordchelll, born September 5, 1924 in Grodno, Poland (Hrodna, Belarus), describes his father, who was a house painter and glazier and had difficulty finding work before the war; the Russian occupation of eastern Poland and his family’s financial condition improving; how there were fewer problems associated with antisemitism during this time; the German invasion and he and his brother having to report for forced labor; working in a mechanical shop repairing German military vehicles; the liquidation of the Grodno ghetto in January 1943; being deported with his family to Auschwitz concentration camp; being assigned to work in "Kanada," sorting the belongings confiscated from new arrivals; how this work allowed him to acquire additional food and clothing, which helped him survive; working in "Kanada" for about six months; being assigned to farm work outside the camp; working on the construction of the crematorium, where he assisted Russian POWs doing iron work; spending time in Gleiwitz concentration camp in Poland as well as a few other minor camps; being liberated in January 1945 after escaping while on death march to Blechhammer concentration camp; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

Esther Blatt, born in 1930 in Romania, discusses her family; being raised Orthodox; growing up on a farm outside of Oradea, Romania; attending school in Oradea; the Jewish community and Jewish traditions she participated in; having to attend a Hungarian school after 1940; speaking Romanian, Hungarian, and Yiddish; the Nazi occupation in 1944 and losing their farm and her father’s distillery; having to wear a star; being moved to the ghetto in May 1944; living in a brick factory; staying in the ghetto for two weeks and having her 14th birthday in the ghetto; being taken to Auschwitz in cattle cars; the selection process upon arrival; staying in Auschwitz for six months; the Blockälteste (inmates in charge of the barrack) in Auschwitz; being taken with 600 other girls to a bomb factory in Czechoslovakia in October 1944 (probably the Flossenbürg subcamp Hertine located in present day Rtyně v Podkrkonoší, Czech Republic); work and life in the camp; an explosion in the bomb factory and the death of one of the German guards; the lack of work and being sent to the fields to dig holes one day and filling in the holes the next day; continuing her religious observations in the camp; fasting on Yom Kippur and deciding to never fast again after someone stole her bread; no longer being religious; her awareness of time in the camp; seeing the Allied planes fly over; being taken to Theresienstadt, where she stayed for two weeks before being liberated; going to Budapest, Hungary; returning to Oradea for three months; living on Mizrachi kibbutz near Rome, Italy with her cousins for over three years; getting married in 1948; deciding to immigrate to Australia; and the difficulty adjusting to life in Australia and feeling ostracized by many Australians.

Edward Schreiber, born in 1934 in the town of Kumene, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia), describes his Orthodox family, including his parents and four siblings; how his father was a textile importer and wholesaler; his parents sending he and his younger sister to their grandmother in Hungary in 1943; the deportations beginning in Hungary and being sent with his sister back to their family; their father arranging hiding places in the vicinity of Bratislava, Slovakia for all seven members of the family; the entire family being betrayed and handed over to the Nazi authorities in December 1944; being sent to Auschwitz concentration camp along with his mother and siblings while his father was taken to a labor camp in Germany; being transported with his mother and his siblings to Theresienstadt concentration camp in the Czech Republic, where they survived the war; his father surviving and reuniting with the family in Bratislava; his father’s death in 1946 from the aftereffects of his labor camp experiences; his family’s move to Australia in 1952; and his regret that he never had a proper education.

Rozia Krakowski, born June 24, 1926 in Konigsberg (probably Chojna, Poland), discusses her family’s moves back and forth between Konigsberg and a town near the German border during the 1930s; her sister’s birth in 1928; her parents getting an apartment in Lodz, Poland a few weeks before the war began; living in Konigsberg after the war started; her parents’ backgrounds; her religious life and attending a Jewish school as well as a Polish school; experiencing some antisemitism as a child; her extended family; being part of a youth organization; the Nazi occupation; the burning of the synagogue while people were inside; men’s beards being cut; having to wear a yellow star; the arrest of her father several time and paying a bribe to have him released each time; working in a factory; her grandmother’s death; living in the ghetto; the deportation in 1941; many members of her family being sent to Auschwitz; her brother hiding when the Germans searched for him; receiving a work letter and hiding in the cellar behind her cousin’s house; being sent to a transit camp; being sent in the fall of 1942 to Markstädt labor camp (also called Laskowitz-Meleschwitz, and located in Laskowice Oławskie, Poland); conditions in the camp; her work detail; her friend Bella; a prisoner in the camp who was impregnated and had to have an abortion; getting letters and parcels from home; being transported to a munitions factory in Germany; her work in the camp; learning that they were making screws for ammunition and beginning to sabotage the screws; being liberated by the Russians; being afraid of the Russians; returning to Poland; finding her brother; going to several places in Hungary; going to Graz, Austria and then Lignitz; going to Turkey illegally and being imprisoned; meeting her husband; going to Paris, France in 1948 while her husband traveled to Israel; going to Israel in January 1949 and getting married; immigrating to Australia with her husband and children in 1960; and adjusting to life in Australia.

Luba Olenski, born in Kidau (Kedainiai), Lithuania on March 3, 1931, describes how in 1935 her family moved to Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania), where her father established a wholesale tobacco and cigarette business; how her family was strictly orthodox and her father was an adherent member of the "Mussar" movement; the Soviet occupation of Kovno and her father fleeing with her to Bialystok, Poland days before the German invasion; the occupation of Bialystok on July 3, 1941 and how three days later her father was among 6,000 Jewish men killed by the Nazis; remaining in the Bialystok ghetto, where she was cared for by relatives; the liquidation of the ghetto on August 15, 1943 and how the 60,000 remaining Jews were put on transports to Treblinka concentration camp; escaping the transport and wandering the countryside; getting help from local Poles; joining a Jewish partisans unit, where she met her future husband; remaining with the group until they were liberated in the fall of 1944; moving with her future family to Briansk, Russia and eventually escaping to Poland; immigrating to Australia in 1947; and getting married in 1950 and raising three children.

Leo Wayman, born on January 7, 1924 in Radom, Poland, describes his memories of the Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky speaking and predicting disaster for the Jews; the establishment of the ghetto and the living conditions; how his family was well-to-do before the war and his father managed to get along with the Nazi Treuhändler put in charge of the family business; continuing to do business and smuggling supplies into the ghetto; the liquidation of most of the ghetto and the brutal roundups by the SS; being taken to work in a munitions factory in Radom and the awful working conditions; the liquidation of the last ghetto; being made to march to Tomaszów, Poland and then being taken by cattle cars to Auschwitz concentration camp; being sent on to a succession of other concentration camps, including Weinigen (possibly Vaihingen/Wiesengrund concentration camp near Karlsruhe, Germany), Hessenthal, and Dachau; being liberated by the United States Army while on a transport to Tirol, Austria; surviving the war with his father, who decided to stay in Germany and was successful in business; immigrating to Australia and having little contact with his father; becoming a successful businessman in Melbourne; being a member of the corn exchange; the inhumane treatment by Jewish Kapos during the war; and how his father was able to bring one Kapo to justice after the war.

Szoel Zeilig Balbin, born February 1, 1926 in Rawa Mazowiecka, Poland, describes his parents and three siblings; attending school; being in the Rawa Mazowiecka ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto in September 1942; living in hiding in Zawady, Poland after 1942; going to Berlin, Germany in February 1946; immigrating to Australia in April 1951; and getting married and having four children.

Kurt Jilovsky, born July 11, 1905 in Liberec, Czechoslovakia (now in Czech Republic), discusses his family; the small synagogue and Jewish community in Liberec; studying Talmud at his paternal grandfather’s house; the relations between Jews and non-Jews; his father’s work as a landscape photographer; his sister Greta who was born in 1908 (she was his only family member who survived the war); moving to Prague in 1910 and attending a government school; attending a convent school at first because it was best primary school in town; speaking German and Czech; growing up in an assimilated family; joining the Jewish boy scouts at age 11; becoming an ardent Zionist but not being religious; his father’s service in WWI; attending a grammar school; his bar mitzvah; conditions in Austria and Czechoslovakia; attending the Czech university of technology, studying economics; his first job at a Jewish-owned company that manufactured tin household articles and steel drums to transport petrol and chemicals; his life in the late 1920s; working for the Philips radio company; traveling to Berlin, Germany to attend a radio exposition after September 1938 and seeing Nazi Germany for the first time; spending three months in Holland in 1938-39 before going to Cyprus; spending two years in Cyprus, working for Phillips; the closing of Philips; trying to volunteer with the Czech Army; working for an orange grower in Cyprus; going to Haifa in 1941; his wife’s experiences during the war; volunteering for the British Army in Palestine; being sent to Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt; being part of a materials transport company; returning to Palestine for officers training school outside Haifa; being paid differently from his peers and reporting it to the British army newspaper; serving in Cairo and meeting Jews who spoke Yiddish; seeing King Lear performed in Yiddish in the Cairo Opera theater; the dispersal of the Jewish company and being stationed in Rome; being discharged from the army in Terranto, Italy; reuniting with his sister; returning to Prague; working for Philips again; going to Palestine and reuniting with his wife in 1946; working for Philips in Holland; going to Sydney, Australia in November 1948; and his feelings about his life.

Aron Nuhimovich Babuh, born May 13, 1927 in Vladimir-Volinsk (Volodymyr-Volyns'kyĭ), Ukraine, describes his parents and three siblings (none of whom survived); the Vladimir-Volinsk ghetto; being liberated by the Russian Army in June 1944; living in after the war; immigrating to Australia in December 1994; getting married twice after 1945; and having one son and one daughter.

Henry Tonkin, born April 20, 1926 in Lvov, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), discusses his family background; his father (Herschel Yakka), who had two brothers and was in the transport business; his mother (Nettie Yakka), who had two sisters; having three brothers and being the youngest; the Russian occupation of Lvov in 1939; his oldest brother who was mobilized into the Polish army; being chosen for the Russian Youth Organization; spending six months in Moscow, Russia; his father’s business being taken; the German invasion in June 1941; the establishment of a ghetto; Jews being issued identification cards; the deportation of the elderly to camp Belzec; his middle brother being sent to camp Janowska; the deportation of his father to camp Belzec; one of his brothers hiding with a Polish dentist; having a work permit; digging trenches at the Lvov airport and then working as a painter; being arrested by Jewish police; being taken to gestapo headquarters; being held for three months for changing jobs without permission; his work while in prison, supplying wood and coal for German apartments; stealing food from cellars; being put on a transport to camp Belzec; escaping and returning to the ghetto; registering as a rail worker; seeing transports of prisoners; being arrested by Ukrainian police twice; being beaten and imprisoned for two weeks; being put on a transport, escaping, and returning to the ghetto; purchasing Polish ID cards and shedding his Jewish identity; taking the name Vladislov Yachavsky, born June 5, 1925; working on the railroad; being sent to Stalino (Donets’k, Ukraine); going to OT (Organisation Todt) headquarters and getting a work assignment; being given a pass back to Poland; being given a German uniform and returning to Lvov, where the ghetto had already been liquidated; returning to Stalino; traveling to Katowice, Poland; going to Prague, Czech Republic and working in the steel industry; the arrival of the Russians; returning to Katowice; his father who was drafted into the Russian army but escaped and survived in Poland; living as a Pole from 1945 to 1948; being arrested in 1948 by Polish police for having American currency; being sentenced to a labor camp for three years; escaping and leaving Poland for political reasons; the difficulty of adapting to life after the war; his suicidal thoughts; going to Lübeck, Germany; being arrested and imprisoned for weeks; denying being Jewish, but reading Seder and receiving help from Jewish authorities; going to a displaced persons camp for a year; immigrating to Australia; getting married in 1956; and his thoughts on Israel and Zionism.

Paul Ryber, born on June 24, 1917 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), discusses his family, including his father Zeigman (Seigman) Rosenberger, his mother Rosa Rosenberger, and his older sister Milla Lester, his younger brother Zoltan, and his younger sister Gertrude (married to Mr. Brill and immigrated to Israel in 1939); the company that his father and uncle owned called Fisher and Grandowitz, which sold women’s clothing; working as a salesman for company; the rise of antisemitism in 1933 and how it became worse in the following years; being given an exception by ministry in 1939 to keep working because he worked at a shop owned by soccer player Dowchick (possibly Jan Dvoracek) who had connections; working until 1944 and having enough food; the German occupation of the city on September 1, 1944 and the relocation of people to Poland; leaving Bratislava in September 1944 and going without his family to Banská Bystrica, Slovakia; staying with a customer; building a bunker; meeting a Russian partisan in the fall of 1944 and hearing from him that Germans were killing all the Jews; going along with the partisan and participating in actions against the Germans; the situation getting worse and helping the American army in April 1945; returning to his house, which was occupied by a Slovak and returned to Ryber; retrieving merchandise that had been buried and beginning work again; the deaths of his parents and brother; getting married in 1945; the communist takeover and losing his business; and immigrating to Australia.

Jack Bart, born September 2, 1929 in Lódz, Poland, describes his parents and two siblings (none of who survived); the ghetto in Lódz; being deported to Auschwitz for three months; working in the factory in Braunschweig for five months; marching to Ravensbrück; being sent to Ludwigslust labor camp; being liberated; being in the Bergen-Belsen orphanage; living in England (1945-1948); immigrating to Israel and living there from 1948 to 1964; immigrating to Australia in 1964; and his marriage and three children.

Helena Bronislawa Blass, born March 28, 1921 in Bochnia, Poland, describes her parents and three siblings; being in Sosnowiec, Poland when the war began in 1939; being taken to work for the Germans in 1939; her father and brother being taken away in 1940; working with her mother and sister in 1941 for the Germans; being taken to the ghetto; being taken April 14, 1943 to Hirschberg concentration camp; being sent in August 1943 to Bolkenheim (Bolkenhain) concentration camp; working in a textile factory; being sent on a death march in January 1945; being liberated May 9, 1945; going to Landsberg, Germany in September 1945; going to France in 1947; going to Israel in 1947; moving to Italy then Australia in 1956; and her marriage and two children.

Joseph John Ronec, born June 1, 1924 in Topol'cany, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), describes his family; being expelled from high school; Jews having to wear the Star of David; living as a refugee with false identification papers in Budapest, Hungary from 1942 to 1944; being sent to the Hungarian-Slovak border (possibly Salgótarján, Hungary); being transported to Auschwitz in May 1944; being sent to Buna (Monowitz concentration camp), working as a slave laborer for I.G. Farben; going to Buchenwald in transit from January 28 to February 1945; being sent to various camps in Germany between February and April 1945, including Buchenwald and Theresienstadt; returning home in June 1945; living in Prague, Czech Republic; living in France from April 1951 to August 1953; going to Melbourne, Australia in September 1953; and getting married and having three children.

Gerta Bennett, born December 26, 1913 in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia (Plzen, Czech Republic), describes her father and husband (neither of whom survived the war); being in Prague, Czech Republic when the war began in 1939; living in the Lodz Ghetto with her parents-in-law and husband from 1940 to 1943; leaving the ghetto August 25, 1944 and being deported to Auschwitz with her mother-in-law and husband; going to Stutthof in 1944 then Dresden, Germany; escaping from Dresden in February 1945; going to Prague and being liberated by Russians in May 1945; living in Stockholm, Sweden in the fall of 1946; immigrating to Australia in 1946; living in Melbourne; and remarrying and having one child.

Motek Kinderlerer, born September 23, 1920 in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes his parents and five siblings; working as a shop assistant; being in Lviv, Ukraine in 1940 when it was occupied by Russians and worked whatever jobs were available; going to Chernowitz, Romania (Chernivtsi, Ukraine) illegally in 1941 and working as a waiter; being captured in July 1942 in Sosnowiec and sent to a labor camp near Breslau (possibly Markstadt); going to several other camps; being in Fünfteichen camp (Laskowitz-Meleschwitz) in January 1944; marching to Gross-Rosen and Weiden in der Oberpfalz, Germany; immigrating to Australia in July 1949; and getting married and having two daughters.

Dr. Paul Grossman (originally Pavel Ulrich Albrecht Grossman; and in Nazi records,Paul Grossmann) August 3, 1924 in Teplice-Šanov, Czechoslovakia, describes his parents and two siblings; fleeing from the Germans and going to Úsobí, Czechoslovakia (Havlíckuv Brod, Czech Republic) to his parents' home; starting an apprenticeship as a cabinet maker; doing forced labor in a forest near Chotěboř, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); the assembly of Jews June 5-9, 1942 in Kolín, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); being in Theresienstadt from June 9, 1942 to the end of the war; being liberated on May 5, 1945; returning to Úsobí; living in Prague, Czech Republic; going to England from July 1949 to March 1950 en route to Australia; life in Australia; getting married in 1956; and his two children.

Sophia Bitencki (also Bitenki), born October 25, 1924 in Bratslav, Ukraine, describes her parents and sibling; living in the Bratslav ghetto in 1941; being sent to the Pechora labor camp in December 1941; being freed in 1944 and going to Uzbekistan; immigrating to Australia in December 1994; and her marriage and two children.

Abraham Hersz Biderman, born August 20, 1924 in Lódz, Poland, describes his parents and one sibling; his education; going to the Lódz Ghetto on May 1, 1940; being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being evacuated to Dora on January 18, 1945; being evacuated to Bergen-Belsen during the first week of April 1945; being liberated by the British Army on April 15, 1945; crossing the border to Belgium in November 1945; arriving in Australia January 11, 1949; and getting married and having one child.

Erika Charlotta Bence, born March 11, 1928 in Spišská Nová Ves, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), describes her parents and brother; attending school for six years; learning to be a dental assistant; living in Liptovský Mikuláš, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) in 1942; fleeing to Závažná Poruba, Slovakia in August 1944; hiding in a bunker; the Germans occupying the nearby village and getting caught; being sent to a collection camp and doing forced labor; being sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp in January 1945; liberation; going to Bratislava, Slovakia in July 1945; returning to Spišská Nová Ves; going to Liptovský Mikuláš in January 1946; living in Prague, Czech Republic; going to Vienna, Austria in October 1949; immigrating to Australia in 1950; living in Melbourne; and getting married and having one child.

Harry Barr (originally Chaskel Barszcz), born January 21, 1920 in Maków Mazowiecki, Poland, describes his parents and six siblings; immigrating in March 1939 to Australia, where two of his sisters were already living there; getting married; and having four children.

Gerald Bantjes, born September 5, 1922 in Medang, Sumatra, Indonesia, describes his parents and four siblings (all of whom survived); studying in Nymegen (Nijmegen), Holland when the war began in 1939; being a judo instructor; his arrest in 1940 by Dutch Nazis for sabotage; being arrested again in December 1943 as a monarchist; being in a detention center for four months then released; hiding in Nymegen from August 1944 until liberation; working as a translator for the British Army in Wychen (Wijchen), Netherlands in September 1944; being with the Second British Army in the 15 S division; traveling to Belgium, France, and Germany as dispatch drier (being a sergeant and later a lieutenant); leaving the British Army in November 1948; immigrating in 1949 and going to Melbourne, Australia; and never getting married.

David Benge, born July 9, 1925 in Bialystok, Poland, describes his six siblings (none of whom survived the war); being a student in Wellington, New Zealand in 1935; apprenticing as a cabinet maker; joining the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) in 1943; being stationed on Bougainville Island (Papua New Guinea) in 1944; being discharged in 1945; moving to Melbourne, Australia in 1948; and getting married and having two children.

Dr. George Julian Barany, born September 3, 1937 Budapest, Hungary, describes his parents; the German occupation; moving around to different houses under Swiss protection; being liberated by the Russians in 1945; going to Vienna, Austria in December 1956; immigrating to Australia in May 1957; going to Melbourne; living in East Paterson (Elmwood Park), NJ for a year (May 1966-February 1967); and getting married in 1945 and having one child.

Learn about over 1,000 camps and ghettos in Volume I and II of this encyclopedia, which are available as a free PDF download. This reference provides text, photographs, charts, maps, and extensive indexes.